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Parliament's women's caucus to host sex work summit on 5 March

Details

Tuesday, 13 February 2018 09:37

News24 reports that Parliament's Multi-Party Women's Caucus (MPWC) said last week that it planned to host a summit on sex work in light of the ANC's resolution to have the practice decriminalised.

The summit will be hosted on 5 March in Parliament and it will hear views from stakeholders on the South African Law Reform Commission's (SALRC) report on adult prostitution, which was released in May 2017. Sex work is currently a criminal offence in SA and the country has some of the highest rates of sexual violence in the world – particularly in the sex work industry. Following the release of the SALRC report, which indicated a preferred option of retaining a totally criminalised legal framework, the MPWC said the full decriminalisation of sex work was the only way to protect the rights of sex workers and address the country's HIV/Aids crisis. At the time, caucus chairperson Masefele Morutoa said the authors of the SALRC report were oblivious to the fact that legalising sex work would allow sex workers to access the criminal justice system. "This has been pivotal to the calls made by many sex workers calling for full decriminalisation," she pointed out. In a statement on Thursday, Morutoa said the caucus had received "huge" interest from the public who wished to comment on the matter.